You can return items back to your supplier by issuing a supplier return. A supplier return is considered a negative invoice to account for discounts and physical inventory returns back to your supplier.
There are three scenarios where a supplier return can be applied to a purchase order in Stock&Buy:
- When part or all of a shipment has either been short-shipped, or damaged goods were received
- When a unit price has been overcharged
- When a discount/supplier credit applied after the order has been received.
A supplier return has three states, Canceled, Draft and Authorized. Unlike Authorized refunds, Canceled and Draft refunds have no impact on stock levels and inventory valuation.
Return damaged inventory
To return damaged inventory included in a received purchase order:
- Navigate to the Purchases page (under the Stock Control menu)
- Find the purchase you would like to credit and open it
- Under the Returns tab, click + Supplier Return
- Populate the items you would like the items to return

Stock&Buy will create a supplier return and will automatically populate all line items to return to your supplier

To complete the supplier return:
- Remove the line items you do not want to return
- Fill out the details of the remaining lines
- Check Return to Stock? if you are physically returning the selected products back to your supplier. This will also remove the units from your stock levels
- Click Save Changes. The supplier return will save as a Draft
- Click Authorize to complete the supplier return
Purchase price correction
A supplier can issue a credit in the case of the unit price of an item being overcharged. This type of supplier return will have no effect on your stock levels.
To issue a supplier return for a unit overcharge:
- Navigate to the Purchases page (under the Stock Control menu)
- Find the purchase you would like to credit and open it
- Under the Returns tab, click + Supplier Return
- Remove the line items you do not want to change
- In the Price field, enter the difference between the correct price and the overcharged price, and the quantity of overcharged units.
- Make sure Return to Stock? is left unchecked
- Click Save Changes. The supplier return will save as a Draft
- Click Authorize to complete the supplier return
The supplier return described above will automatically amend the returned product moving average cost to account for the price overcharge.
Discount/supplier credit
A supplier can issue a credit or a discount on the overall purchase order. This type of supplier return will have no effect on your stock levels.
To record a supplier discount/credit
- Navigate to the Purchases page (under the Stock Control menu)
- Find the purchase you would like to credit and open it
- Under the Returns tab, click + Supplier Return
- Remove all the items that have been populated
- Click on + Add Custom Item
- Enter the discount/credit amount
- Click Save Changes. The supplier return will save as a Draft
- Click Authorize to complete the supplier return
A supplier credit/discount will automatically result in a decrease of all the ordered products moving average cost to account for the discount/supplier credit.
Common errors & warnings
There a few checks Stock&Buy performs while authorizing a refund:
- Stock Level checks: to make sure you have enough stock to return to your supplier
- Inventory value checks: to make sure the value of the supplier refund does not exceed the available inventory value